Most of us are not rich enough to be eligible.

The last dotcom I worked for was trying to get funding and had a freakout because someone took money from an unaccredited investor. Had to spend a bunch of their remaining cash to buy that person out and clear the balance sheets.

You have a lot more leeway to ~defraud~ work with accredited investors without all sorts of consumer-protectiony legal clauses kicking in. It's a liability for future rounds. Luckily there are a bunch of rich suckers out there.